Blog Description

This is a blog for the family and friends of Collin Park. He will be serving a two year mission in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he left on January 24, 2013. While Collin is on his mission his Mom will be posting pictures and letters as she gets them, the content will be straight from Collin (unless otherwise noted) - spelling and punctuation will be corrected of course! Commentary and clarification may be added by his Mom as needed.UPDATE: Collin's mission was split in half! The Sierra Leone Mission included the country of Liberia when Collin first left. As of July 1, 2013, the mission was split along the border and the new mission created: the Liberia, Monrovia Mission. Collin will never see the country of Sierra Leone. He has been in Monrovia Liberia since he left the MTC in Ghana.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Because of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone Missions were evacuated on August 4, 2014 and missionaries were reassigned to different missions. Collin was reassigned to the Salt Lake City Central Mission.

Monday, March 31, 2014

March 31, 2014

This week was fast but a little trying for me.it seems like I need to work on some
patience.

On Wednesday I went on exchange with Elder Zolo (Ivory Coast,
Native French Speaker).I absolutely
love this guy.I learned so much from
him.He was actually in the same
apartment as me when I first came to LIB.We were able to have a good amount of lessons on a short proselyting
day.He gave me some really good ideas
on how I can improve and I have implemented them in the rest of the week and it
was great.

On Thursday and Friday we spent a lot of time in the
apartment because we had a problem with our water, so since I am the District
Leader, I had be there all day... so it was kind of a bummer.

We had some good lessons this week though.Melvin is a less active member.We're not sure the main reason why, most
Liberians will tell us, but for some reason Melvin just won’t come to church. We did
meet his mother and father the other day, but they were very uninterested, and
it seemed like they didn’t want us there at all, so we left.It was very strange.My companion noticed something that I didn’t
which isn’t very good.It was a mark of
a society here in LIB so that’s probably the reason why they didn’t want us
anywhere close.It shows you how the
Spirit effects people., the Spirit is so powerful and so important.We did have a lesson with Melvin
though.We talked about the Priesthood,it was good for him, he had somewhat forgot
about it.

Nacy is also a less active.Her father was a Bishop at one point, back when they had a stake
here.It’s been about a year for her
since she came to church.With her we
read Mosiah 2:22, 41, we asked her what her biggest desire was, read the
scriptures, and then we had to say what it meant for her. We talked about how the only way for you to
receive the things that you want in life is to keep the commandments.Then we talked about the commandments, but for
her, she is stubborn, and won’t come to church.she says that it’s too far of a distance,she'll wait for when the new big chapel is
built.What sucks is that her brother
has a car, (hard to see people with cars here) he is less active too.This is a struggling family, but they know
that the church is true, so I guess that’s a good thing.

I had a pretty good week how was yours??

Elder Park

The White African

T.I.A.

I asked about when the new building would be done.He wrote:The new building has a two year contract on it
so it'll be a while.The reason why is
because during the rainy season, they will stop working and things will spoil
so they will have to redo some things.

Less actives members are sometimes hard,sometimes only one visit makes the
difference.

Monday, March 24, 2014

March 24, 2014

The week flew again!

I had a very humbling experience happen on Tuesday, being
here in general is humbling, but during District Meeting, Elder Enwukweri gave
a small instruction.He asked us to talk
small about our struggles we had before we came on mission.I was the last one to talk, in my district I
am the only white man,everyone else is
African.Wow, to listen to their stories
is stunning.Hearing how they literally
battled to go on mission and the determination to serve.When it got to me, I literally couldn’t say anything.I really didn’t have any trials or struggles,
I literally had all the support I could ever want or ever needed.I thank you all so much for your love and
support.

These past 2 weeks I have worked harder than I have before
and I am just physically exhausted.Being here in Upper Caldwell, hmmm, no small work you have to do.We live on a generator from 7 to 10:30pm.We don’t have running water, but we have a
hand pump that is for the community, that’s how we get our water.Pumping that thing is hard!!!! and then carrying 2 buckets back to the
apartmentisn’t much fun.It’s a lot of work being here.

My companion, Elder Godi, from Zimbabwe, came from and
apartment where you didn’t have to work much, so he’s been really tired this
week too.It’s been a great week
though, still taught a lot of lessons.Abraham is awesome but he just wants to learn too much, but he's smart
enough.We just have to check his
motives.A lot of Liberians listen and
learn from us but then run away and build their own church even though they
fully understand the Restoration and the need for Priesthood keys.It’s really frustrating at times.

On Sunday we had a District Conference for Bushrod Island
District.(i only have one more of these
left on my mission!!) (time flies).I
was able to see a lot of members from Doe Community.Doe Community was my first area.Even though i didn’t spend long there, I love
that place and I love the people.I was
also able to see some of the people I was able to baptize a year ago.it literally brought tears to my eyes when i
saw that they were still active.I’m
still speechless about it.This mission
is the best.So many miracles
happen.I love LIB.

I love you all and pray for you always.I hope you have a great week

Elder Park

The White African

T.I.A.

Extras:

I asked him about being the only white guy in the apartment,
he said:“yeah, the only white man.It’s not bad.The Elders I’m with don’t seen color.Only Elder Enwukweri jokes every one one time about it.It’s not bad. It’s my first time that this has
happened.It’s cool.Enwukweri is from Nigeria, Nabende is from
Uganda, and Godi is from Zimbabwe.

Living here isn’t easy, especially in my apartment.It’s nick name is the outer darkness
apartment....

Below is a picture sent to me by Sister Berrett, one of the senior missionaries serving in Liberia.

Monday, March 17, 2014

This transfer period was probably the fastest transfer of my
mission, these past 6 weeks flew.We
got our transfer news on Saturday night, but I will hold off on spilling the
beans!

This week was also the best week of the transfer.We worked harder than I have worked in my
entire mission.I was exhausted, I am
exhausted..

On Tuesday there was an exchange with my Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Dahlin, who was the last of
my MTC I could serve with.I have now been able to serve at least one
day with everyone from my MTC group.That’s
super cool!!!We had a great day and he
was able to give me some really good advice.Elder Witehira went with Elder Zolo (ivory coast). i don’t know what they did, but ever since
then, Elder Witehira has been on fire.I love that guy!

Wednesday was just a normal day, but on Thursday I went on
exchange again.This time with Elder
Enwukweri from Nigeria, he's only 3 months older than me on mission but
sometimes acts older.Some people get
tired faster than others.It was a good
day though, he was a little sick but still wanted to go around.In
this mission, we missionaries don’t like staying in the apartment because of
how hot it gets inside during the day.So
we weren’t gonna stay.

Friday we planned on seeing 7 people.Out the 7 we planned for, we saw one of them,
but we still had a fantastic day.We
saw a lot of really good people.Sister
Theresa is super nice but she won’t really listen to us anymore. The Jehovah Witnesses kept giving her free
things so she wants to go there.(I asked what they had given her, he
said:“They gave Theresa a really cool
looking bible.Bibles are somewhat hard
to get around here.”)

Saturday, we taught a lot of people about the
Restoration.It was a good day.We felt proud of ourselves when we closed for
the day.Lennox is cool.Very eager to start listening to our
message.

Sunday was just normal.

TRANSFER NEWS:

Elder Nabende will finish his mission in Upper Caldwell.Elder Enwukweri will be the one to 'kill'
him. (missionary lingo for being the last companion someone has on
mission).These two share the apartment
that Collin lives in.

Elder Witehira is going to Congo Town to be with a
Zimbabwean.Me, I received Elder Godi
who is also from Zimbabwe as my new companion.Round 2 with
an elder from Zimbabwe!!

My week was great! I hope everyone else had a good week too.

Elder Park

The White African

T.I.A.

Extra:

I’m bummed Witehira left, by far my favorite companion on
mission.Yeah this was his first move im
happy for him though. Transfers happened
this morning. Elder Godi loves rugby.

Monday, March 10, 2014

March 10, 2014

What a good week

Tuesday I was able to go on
exchange with Elder Nabende (he's from Uganda).He took me into his area.This exchange
was unusual.I have been on exchanges
many times with him when I was in Tinker Village since he was my Zone Leader,
but this time I was the one conducting the exchange.It was really good, we saw a lot of
people.Our first lesson was with Dianna (I had a
great lesson with you Mom!!), this woman is really nice, very polite and very
educated.She has spent a lot of time in
Nigeria and Ghana and has met with missionaries over there, but moved and lost
contact. She is also the one that we
bought lunch from.She had a very
strange soup that day too, it was made out of banana's.It was really good actually!

On Wednesday we met with Sister
Tyler.Her husband has been a member for
about 2 years, but spent a lot of the time less active.A couple Sundays ago they both randomly
showed up to church so we jumped on it!This woman is fantastic!!She's
an older woman, but is going to college to further her education in
nursing.When her husband was baptized,
she didn’t have a problem with it, but wanted nothing to do with the
church.But over time she became a
little interested.That’s when we came
in.Before we gave her a Book of Mormon,
she was scared to even hold, now she's reading it!!Although she is traveling for the next couple
weeks, I have a feeling that she will bring her Book of Mormon.

Thursday we struggled small, and
when I say small, I mean a lot.No one
was home.Our mission president has
said, if you get bounced, look around and teach whoever you see.So we tried that, still didn’t work.Everyone was either busy or there was no one
there... but, we managed to see a couple people and even find three less
actives. We were able to clear a lot of
doubt about Joseph Smith, teach someone about the Restoration, and then help
someone know the truth about the Book of Mormon.

On Friday we had a Zone
Meeting.At the end of it, it started to
rain...March is supposed to be the
hottest and driest month of the year, but that day, it decided to rain.It was really annoying too,

We had a great day planned.We met with Sunnie.This guy is great.He's very young, but super smart and ready
for the truth.We have met with him
about 3 times this gone week and he's just eatingit up.He
loves the Book of Mormon, which he was also a little scared of at first.

Saturday, well I won’t talk about Saturday
because it was just a bad day.

This whole transfer we have focused
on the Book of Mormon, almost 90% of our lessons have been somehow connected to
the Restoration of the Gospel.This
transfer has flown too.This is now week
6 of the transfer, which means we will find out who is getting transferred on Thursday,
hopefully.

I hope that all is well with whoever reads
this.I love you all

Elder Park

The White African

T.I.A.

I posted the picture from last week
on face book, the one showing him doing his laundry, I asked him if there wasn’t
someone he could hire, he wrote:

Hahaha, sometimes, depending on the
area, people will come wash for you, sometimes for free and sometimes not.I've had both.One area was 10 LD (12 cents) for every clothing item, and
then a different area, 100LD for everything (just over $1).My future wife will love me,especially because I won’t make her wash
everything buy hand.The woman here,wow, much respect!Those ladiescan wash!!!It literally takes all day for some people because of the amount of
clothes.I have to wash by hand, hang it on the drying
rack, wait all day, sometimes two days, and then fold all of them...sweet LIB

Monday, March 03, 2014

March 3, 2014

This week FLEW!!!!!!! Holy cow did it go fast!

On Tuesday as I was preparing for our District Meeting, I
got a call from President Kirkham... ever since 2014 started, I've seen him and
talked with him more than I did for the first 6 months of his presidency, it’s
weird.He said he wanted to come to our district
meeting... here I am saying, oh goodness, I didn’t prepare very well...but it was okay he took most of the time
anyway.He was talking to us about how
we need to strengthen the branch, he even asked us if he should move the
missionaries out.Our reply was simple,
we all said, President, we didn’t come to serve because it was easy, we aren’t
complaining about how hard and dry this area is.If you take us out of the area, it will be
the downfall of this branch, and more people will be going less active.We don’t want to move.President didn’t say much after that.That also leads into what I was going to talk
about, about how successful missionaries become successful.Example: Ammon and the Sons of Mosiah, they suffered beyond belief, look at the end
result of their 14 year mission.We are
just serving for 2, we can suffer small.

On Wednesday we saw so many people!It was one the best days of the week.We only saw 3 of the 7 people we planned for,
but it was sweet.After one lesson, our
question was, 'who's next?'We were
constantly looking for someone to teach.We had a great lesson with Ophelia who has a problem with forgiving
people, so we shared with her how Christ forgave those that killed him.It was great lesson.

Thursday was awesome!I have wanted to do this for the whole of my mission, go out with just a
Book of Mormon, Thursday we did it! Oh
it was so fun, it really tested our knowledge of the Book of Mormon.It’s also a testimony builder too.Most Liberians don’t understand what the Book
of Mormon talks about, so when we did nothing but use it, it was great.Daniel knew almost nothing about it, so we
talked about it.Almost every lesson we
had focused on the Book of Mormon.It
was a fun day.

This whole week was good.We were always trying to see one more person, have one more lesson.It made the days fly.President Kirkham has set a goal for us: double our lessons.It is not going to be easy, but Elder Witehira
and I are up for the challenge!

Missionary work is divine! and amazing!!! I love this mission.

I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Elder Park

The White African

T.I.A.

This is Elder Witehira and Collin

Elders Enwukweri, Nabende, Witehira, Park

The first two pictures were sent to me by Sister Berrett - many thanks to her!

Collin sent the next pictures:

This was Collin's little friend in Tinker village - of course he had to pose!

The Karate kid!

Still a kid - love that smile!

Yep, this is how he does laundry, every week! He really is looking forward to using a washing machine when he gets home.﻿

Elder Collin Park is serving a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He will be teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in Sierre Leone and Liberia (West Africa) from January 2013 until January 2015.